Dawson takes his turn next, and we play for another half hour. Whenever someone loses, we reset and keep going. No one repeats a statement, but Sutton wins every time. She never loses more than a finger or two.
Quietly, she excuses herself from the group. No one else notices, busy watching whatever game is on and complaining about classes.
My eyes trail her as she places her plate in the sink, rinsing it first, and disappears down a hallway.
I follow her lead, I stand up and take my plate to the kitchen. In their cabinets, I find a mug to start a cup of tea. While the water is boiling, I wash the plates in the sink from tonight.
Sutton hasn’t returned.
A door closes, or opens, then there’s another almost unnoticeable closure.
I pad down the hallway toward her bedroom. My hand burns from the hot porcelain, and when I turn to knock, hot tea splashes over the side.
“I’ll be right out,” she sniffles.
Is she crying?
There’s a skip in my heartbeat, a hollowing out of my stomach. It’s like there’s a faucet in my brain and someone turned the handle just enough that it drips. Each drip forms a puddle of panic that settles in my stomach.
“Dave, it’s me.”
“Go away, Cooper.” Does she have those three words queued up or something?
I knock again. Sutton cracks the door open.
“What do you want?” Her facial features match the sharpness in her voice. Sutton spins around, walking away from the door she left open. The crack is big enough that I can see in. She sits in the middle of her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest, and rests her forehead on top of them.
She changed. She’s not in her dusty pink sweater with cherries all over it and vintage denim overalls over top. They are traded for green pajama bottoms tucked into white ruffled socks with dogs on them and an oversized shirt.
On my next exhale, I push open the rest of the door with the back of my shoulder. Sutton doesn’t pick her head up.
The mattress dips underneath my weight, causing her body to lean toward me. I scoot in next to her, careful to not spill the tea on myself or her purple comforter.
“Here.” I offer her the tea, turning the handle in her direction, so she doesn’t burn her hand.
She looks at me, then bounces to the mug.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
We must be in the twilight zone because she answers. Truthfully.
“No.” She takes a sip, and I hope I remember how she takes it correctly. “Honey and lemon with a splash of milk?”
“Yeah.”
Sutton raises the mug to her lips, the rim fitting between them. She breathes in deeply and out through her nose. “Sometimes I make this just for the smell. I don’t even drink it, just sit here and breathe. It reminds me of Mom.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admit.
“Now you do.” She rests the mug on her knees. “I think about her and Dad a lot.”
“Is that why you’re crying? You left your phone in the living room. I can go get it and we can video them.”
“Yes.” I shift to get up. “No, not that. Yes, they are why I’m crying.” She shakes her head and curls fall forward, hiding her away. Mindlessly, I reach out and push them behind her ear so I can see her, read her eyes. “Partly.
“I get jealous of their love. That they found each other so young and make it all look so easy. Tonight reminded me how I’ve never had anything like that and probably won’t.”
“You’ve dated, what? Two guys.”
